Rocket League's new arena, the Forbidden Temple, is a fetching car-ball battlefield all decked out reds and purples, and it will be available to everyone from January 20 to celebrate Chinese New Year. 

Along with the Forbidden Temple, the Lucky Lanterns event will also let you earn red envelopes that can be redeemed for New Year rewards, including some very flashy cosmetics for your wee cars, including paper dragon kites and new dragon-themed skins. Get your hands on limited-time golden lanterns and you'll also be able to unlock items from Champions Series 1, 2 and 3. 

If you've taken a break from Rocket League, you might have missed a spot of controversy that hit the game late last year. Psyonix has done away with loot boxes, normally a cause for celebration, but the community wasn't too chuffed with what replaced them: an item shop that tipped over the game's economy. 

Along with the shop, players can now get blueprints that can be crafted into a new item, at the cost of some credits. While it's removed the randomness of the old system, it also means you can't get lucky and net yourself a rare item for the price of a single (no longer available) key. Since the update, however, Psyonix has reduced most blueprint prices, with the exception of black market items. 

Complaints seem to have died down since the price reduction, so hopefully everyone is in a better mood this year. 

The Lucky Lanterns event kicks off on January 20 and ends on February 10, 

Yesterday, I complained that after doing away with loot boxes, Rocket League's new Blueprint system still felt too expensive. True, it's cheaper to buy $20 worth of Credits and craft a Black Market Blueprint than it was to buy bucketfuls of keys to open crate after crate, but $20 for the privilege of using one animated decal doesn't feel like much of a deal either.

Today, Psyonix has lowered the prices on most Blueprints, which I suspected might happen. The price of Black Market items—which are the most desired—hasn't changed, however. They still cost 2,000-plus Credits, which can be purchased for $20 if you buy two packs of 1,100, or $25 if you splurge on 3,000 Credits and keep the leftovers for something else. Every other rarity, however, is cheaper. Here are the new prices:

• Rare: 50-100 Credits 
• Very Rare: 100-200 Credits
• Import: 300-500 Credits 
• Exotic: 700-800 Credits
• Most Paint Colors: 50-200 additional Credits
• Burnt Sienna: 0 additional Credits
• Titanium White: 100-500 additional Credits
• Special Editions: 200-400 additional Credits

Ignoring the discount when you buy large amounts of Credits, the conversion is about $1 per 100 credits. That puts unpainted Exotic items at $7 to $8, with another $0.50 to $5 tacked on for painted variants. For comparison, Exotics were $16 before the change. 

I can stomach that, even if some items still cost more than they used to on the key marketplaces. When opening crates, you were lucky to get an Exotic item by spending the same amount on keys—it was easy to open 20 crates in a row and at best get an Import car body you already had.

I'm still a bit stuck on the Black Market price. $20 for my painted Mainframe Blueprint? Nah. It's an OK looking decal and I'd probably use it if I had it, but it's not that special. (I probably shouldn't talk too big, though. Who knows how I'll behave if a Fire God Blueprint appears in my inventory at 1 am on some freewheeling night.)

If you spent Credits to craft Blueprints between December 4 and December 11, you'll automatically be refunded Credits to make up for the difference between the old price and the new price.

This won't be the end of post-loot box drama. Even as games like Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive cling to them, loot boxes are on the way out overall—especially with some countries regulating them like gambling—and the transition will undoubtedly meet more bumps and derailments along the way.

Update: Most prices have been reduced.

Original story: Loot boxes are reviled by many, but their removal from Rocket League hasn't been met with open arms. Even if the new system technically saves players money on ultra rare items—loot boxes are not known for their value—it doesn't feel that way. What it feels like is shopping at a tourist trap where all the items are marked up 500 percent.

As a brief primer, Rocket League's old system dropped crates after completed games. Keys, which cost a dollar a piece in bulk, opened them. Chances are, any given crate revealed a boring decal for a car you don't use, but they also offered the slight possibility of getting a coveted Black Market item, a category which includes universal animated decals and showy goal explosions.

The new system drops Blueprints instead of crates, and crafting a Blueprint costs Credits. If you're lucky enough to get a Blueprint for a Black Market item you want, it costs 2,200 Credits to build. At $25 for 3,000 Credits, that's a pricey decal.

It is technically a discount, at least if opening crates had been your primary way of obtaining new items. Unless you were ridiculously lucky, you might've had to spend hundreds of dollars on keys to get a Black Market item in the past, and it wouldn't necessarily have been one you wanted. Spending $20 on keys to open 20 crates for 20 items only feels like a better deal until I look at my mess of an inventory, which is full of duplicates and uninteresting wheels and paint finishes I'll never use.

But back when loot boxes were still around, marketplace websites connected players for trades, and deals could be struck on popular items—sometimes more than $25 for extremely coveted decals, cars, and goal explosions, but sometimes less. Now the market can only adapt to Psyonix's price point.

I didn't play the market, hunting for players willing to take my Titanium White car bodies in exchange for keys I could use for the next trade, so the change affects me less than others. But I think many of us can agree on this: There's no damn way I'll ever put down $25 to buy enough Credits to unlock one Black Market decal, even if I've spent far more on keys over the past several years. I appreciate that it's no longer an exploitative game of chance, but the new context makes me ask: "Will I really get $25 worth of enjoyment out of this item?" The answer is a resounding no.

I might spend $10 on an item I really want—Rare, Very Rare, Import, and Exotic items now go for between $1 and $15 worth of Credits—but even that's pushing it. If I had my way, I'd lower prices, but more importantly, I'd let players dismantle the crap they don't want for Credits.

Right now, you can trade up items for better items, but the system is annoyingly restrictive: you have to match five items of the same rarity from the same set, and some items can't be traded up at all, which means my inventory is clogged with orphans. After years of playing, I have loads of items that do nothing for me. 

Knowing that inventory clutter is an issue, Psyonix added a way to archive old items, clearly skirting the obvious alternative. Let us turn them into Credits, the way unwanted Hearthstone cards can be turned into Dust to buy other cards. I would happily discard 30 old player banners and car toppers to build a Blueprint. Does Psyonix make less money that way? Maybe, but I'm not spending $25 for one decal, either, so it seems we're at a stalemate.

I'd wager that, whatever the pricing, Psyonix will pull in less money than it did with loot boxes—there's a reason they became so popular with game publishers, after all. Loot boxes rain cash, and it's an overall good that Psyonix has done away with them in favor of transparency. But the fact that most of us are getting a better deal with direct purchases doesn't counteract the sticker shock. The replacements are simply too expensive.

Right now, I'd wait and see what happens to the prices. A more business-minded person once told me that you always want to start high when pricing something for the first time, because it's easy to lower prices if sales stagnate, but much harder to raise prices if it turns out you undervalued your product. That may be the strategy here.

Rocket League has tossed out its loot box system entirely as of the latest update, which went live last night. Given the reputation of loot boxes, you might assume that this would be cause for the community to celebrate, but it looks like the replacement might actually be worse.

Update 1.70 gets rid of everything relating to crates and keys, replacing the system with a shop where you can spend credits on specific items, or you can use them to craft the new blueprints. The community aren't exactly convinced it's better value for money.

Previously, players would buy keys and, as this Reddit post notes, you'd get one crate, and thus one item, for every key. Because the results were random, you could get an extremely rare item, technically, for just over $1. The downside was that you could open 20 crates and not get anything you wanted, but you'd still have 20 items to show for it. With the new system, players could spend $20 on a single item. 

Now your $1 will net you only the least desirable items, and you'll still need to shell out a minimum of $5 for 500 credits, the smallest bundle. You know exactly what you're getting, unlike the crates, but this transparency comes at a steep cost. 

One of the shop's current featured items is a car that's being sold for 1,200 credits, which is technically just over $10, but you'll actually need to buy two bundles of credits, 500 and 1,100, if your balance is empty, costing you around $15. Some of these items have been in the game for years—with players trading them for a few keys each, worth a few bucks—but they're now being sold for nearly ten times that by Psyonix.  

Rocket League isn't free-to-play, and you might end up spending the same amount on an item as a copy of the game. Some players are already predicting that this is the first move in Rocket League making the shift to free-to-play, however, and the shop certainly looks the part. 

Generally, the mood on the Rocket League subreddit has turned pretty sour, with all of the top posts being extremely critical and one calling for the now traditional boycott. I guess it is possible to make something less popular than loot boxes.

When Psyonix announced that it was doing away with Rocket League's crates and keys, replacing them with blueprints, it was also accompanied by the news that the Showroom would be making way for a new Item Shop. Psyonix has now shared more details about how the shop will work. 

The Item Shop will feature all types of items available in Rocket League, with featured items on a 48-hour timer and daily ones refreshing every 24-hours, naturally. Unlike the crate and key system, you'll know exactly what you're getting, from the credit cost to the kind of variant you're purchasing. 

Any keys you still have in your inventory will be converted into credits, with each being worth 100 credits that can be spent in the Item Shop, as well as on crafting blueprints or upgrading your Rocket pass. Credits can also be purchased directly, though only in bundles. Here are the prices: 

• 500 credits—$4.99
• 1100 credits—$9.99
• 3000—$24.99
• 6500—$49.99

DLC packs are also being tossed out. If you already own them, you can keep their contents, but from next month's update nobody will be able to purchase them. The items they contain might end up in the Item Shop at a later date, but Psyonix isn't guaranteeing it. 

One thing that's staying the same is the Esports Shop, which will be sticking around and continuing to let you spend tokens on items.

While the new systems are meant to add clarity to Rocket League's microtransactions, I find it just as convoluted as most models. It's not egregious, but it's wild that this obtrusive thing where you're still being rewarded with items you can't use until you buy a bundle of credits is an improvement. 

Expect the changes in December. 

This year's Haunted Hallows event in Rocket League will feature a bunch of Halloween-themed cosmetics for your battle-cars, adding trails of autumn leaves and spider paintjobs and the like. All of them are earnable with 'Candy Corn' currency, which you get for playing matches during the spookytimes. 

But as well as the generic Halloween stuff, this year there's also a Stranger Things tie-in. The Farmstead Arena will become part of the Upside-Down, complete with a red sky and the Mind Flayer looming in the background. Some of the other new cosmetics include a Demogorgon banner and title, Scoops Ahoy avatar border, Hawaiian Hopper decal, Camp Know Where hat, and a rocket boost that's all red swoosh. 

A couple of those will only make sense if you've seen the third season of the show, which you should because it's quite good. The Haunted Hallows event will go live on October 14 and continue until November 11.

If you enjoy playing the key market in Rocket League, your days as a used car dealer may be coming to a close. As previously announced, Psyonix and its new owner Epic Games will be ending the key and crate system that has been the primary loot distribution method for some time. Today, they've announced what will replace it come December.

Rather than occasionally receiving loot crates which can be opened by purchasing keys, we'll occasionally be rewarded with 'blueprints.' Blueprints can be crafted with credits, the new premium currency replacing keys, and you'll know exactly which item each blueprint will create.

Unopened crates in your inventory at the time of the change will be converted to blueprints. Those blueprints will be for randomly selected items from the crates, so it might be wise to hoard them for now—one of them could turn into a blueprint for an item you've been hoping for. Unused keys in your inventory will become credits.

Also coming in December is a new Item Shop, where credits can be spent directly on a rotating selection of cars and car accessories, including "new items, legacy Crate content you might have missed out on, and the long-awaited debuts of items like the Titanium White Dominus."

Items purchased in the Item Shop will not be tradeable. Psyonix will not say whether blueprints and credits will be tradeable at this time, which is what will determine whether the current marketplace can continue to exist. If I had to guess, I'd assume that blueprints will be tradeable, but credits will not. Again, there's no confirmation on that at this time.

Currently, it's possible to trade keys, which are worth about a dollar each. Big spenders can thus purchase a large quantity of keys and then trade them for crates or specific items they want, while the recipients can use their key hauls to open more crates or make a trade of their own. If the new credits can't be traded, some other item will have to be used as the 'currency,' and the marketplace won't be the same.

While some applauded Psyonix's decision to remove 'blind box' rewards from Rocket League, others felt burned. Under the current model, it is possible to obtain coveted items without spending money: Essentially, those willing to buy keys generate a marketplace for those willing to hoard random drops and make trades but unwilling to pay. Someone has to purchase the keys in circulation, but it doesn't have to be the person who ultimately uses them. If the new currency isn't tradeable, that all changes.

Personally, I'd rather buy credits and craft the specific item I want instead of buying keys, opening crates, and getting nothing I want—usually at 2 am, when I really shouldn't be spending money on anything. That said, I'm already one of the people who buys keys (against my better judgement), rather than one of the people who benefits from key purchasers. 

Psyonix will announce more about the end of crates in the coming months. Prior to the switchover, it's releasing one last crate, the Vindicator Crate, this week on October 3 (the car at the top of this post is one of the items it'll contain). It's up to you whether to throw keys at it, or wait for it and all your other crates to turn into blueprints. 

Rocket Passes will continue as per usual, the only difference being that the premium passes will cost credits instead of keys after the change. The Esports Shop, which uses its own special currency, will also go on unchanged.

You can find a few more details, such as what's happening with the current 'trade in' system (which is distinct from player trading), in the announcement post. Pricing on credits and blueprints is yet to be announced, and will partially determine whether the reaction from Rocket League players is overall positive or negative.

The next season of ranked Rocket League begins next week, on Tuesday, August 27. A day later on Wednesday, the 28th, Rocket Pass 4 will kick off with new items to unlock in the usual free and paid versions.

Mudcat is the new car, which is unlocked when you buy the premium Rocket Pass. It's inspired by rally cars, and there's a G1 version at tier 25, and a GXT version at tier 70, as seen in the trailer above. Personally, I wish it looked more like a Peugeot 205 or something. It doesn't even look much like the typical modern rally cars, now that I think of it, unless Ford Fiestas are significantly different than I remember. But I'm nitpicking.

You'll have quite a long time to unlock tiers, as this Rocket Pass doesn't end until December 4. As usual, the premium version costs 10 keys, which comes to $10. Or you can spend 20 keys to skip straight to tier 12, but no one I know has needed to do such a thing—I'm at tier 257 in the current Rocket Pass. Maybe I just play Rocket League too much.

The start of season 12 also means that this is my last chance to crack Champion rank in Snow Day (the good mode that you should play) and earn that season reward. Best of luck with your own ranked journey, and next week's reranking, if you're also a person who cares about Rocket League ranks enough to think about them when not playing Rocket League.

As more proof that there's absolutely nothing we can all agree on, the news that Psyonix will be removing paid loot boxes from Rocket League has had a mixed response. There's a lot of support for the decision in the replies to the announcement tweet, but also cries that Epic, which recently purchased Psyonix, is "ruining" the game.

There are some good questions in the thread. It's the keys used to open crates that cost money in Rocket League, not the crates themselves, and some players use keys as a trading currency. Players want to know if their big key stashes will still be worth anything after the change, or if they should open all their crates right now.

But many others seem to just like the loot boxes. Ultra-rare Black Market items are status symbols in Rocket League, and a community has formed around collecting and opening crates. YouTuber Jon Sandman regularly gets over 100K views on crate opening videos.

It can be hard to tell what's shitposting and what's actual rage on social media, but the number of angry responses indicates that there's real opposition to the paid loot box removal, which may come as a surprise if you've been following the general discussion around the practice for the past few years.

Ever since the Battlefront 2 debacle, criticism from players, press, and governments has led publishers to defend loot boxes, remove them, or publish drop rates as a concession. Our readers overwhelmingly express distaste for loot boxes when we report on them. See the replies to this tweet, for instance.

There are plenty of Rocket League players who are happy paid loot boxes are going away—Rocket League pro Tigreee responded with hearts—but clearly the idea that everyone hates them is false. When a community of traders and YouTubers and fashion aficionados forms around the practice, as it has in other games as well, opinions start to vary. (There's also some generalized Epic hate involved here.)

Personally, I'm glad paid loot boxes are going. I admit I've occasionally enjoyed having ultra-rare items, but to get that stuff I've spent a lot of money on crap that just clogs my inventory until I can trade it up. I'd much rather be able to express myself with themed car designs without having to throw money away on decals I'll never use.

Besides, pretty much everyone I play with and against in Diamond-level Snow Day is decked out with animated decals and fancy goal explosions and painted wheels. It's how you put those things together that's interesting these days.

In April, Rocket League developer Psyonix disabled crate keys in Belgium and the Netherlands in order to bring the game into compliance with new loot box regulations in those countries. Today it went a step further—a big step further—by announcing that it's ditching them entirely.

"Here at Psyonix, and Epic Games as a whole, we are dedicated to creating the best possible experience for our players all over the world," the studio said. "In pursuit of that goal, later this year we will remove all paid, randomized Crates from Rocket League, replacing them with a system that shows the exact items you’re buying in advance."

Full details will be revealed later, but Psyonix said the new system will be similar to Fortnite Save the World's X-Ray Llamas, which enable players to see what's inside loot crates before purchasing them. Rocket Pass Premium, DLC Cars, and Esports Shop items will remain available for direct purchase when the new system goes live, which is expected to happen later this year.